Let's sit back and recall the Hueple years for a few moments ( except SDK and CoverSix....ya'll stay in your corners! ). Nothing like scoring in three plays every other series and then giving up 40+ on defense. What's it like as a DC for an Air Raid team?
UCF's co-DC David Gibbs has some good insights to this topic.
David Gibbs, a co-defensive coordinator at UCF, doesn’t believe in the “softness” myth either. Gibbs was once one of the hottest young defensive coaches in the sport. In 1997, at 29, he became the youngest DC in Division I when Glen Mason hired him at Minnesota. By his third season, Gibbs turned one of the Big Ten’s most consistently bad units into a defense ranked No. 8 in points allowed and pass efficiency defense.
In his one season at Auburn in 2005, the Tigers ranked No. 6 in scoring defense. At Houston, he improved the defense from No. 110 to No. 20 in his first year and to No. 15 his next. When Kliff Kingsbury hired him at Texas Tech in 2015, he inherited a unit that ranked second-to-last in scoring defense. Gibbs’ first two defenses in Lubbock ranked No. 125 and 128 in points allowed before improving to No. 98 and then to No. 86 in 2018, the year Kingsbury was fired.
“The truth is, and nobody will believe me, Kliff did a great job (running the team),” Gibbs said. “We practiced live tackling and we did a lot of things that people say Air Raid teams don’t do. We did. Every school is different. We were just so far behind recruiting that we couldn’t catch up.”
The numbers between where the Houston and Texas Tech teams ranked in average pass attempts per game are an interesting barometer to mirror the defensive struggles. In Gibbs’ four seasons, the Red Raiders ranked Nos. 2, 1, 8 and 4 in pass attempts per game, whereas Houston ranked Nos. 13 and 49 in his two seasons there. Gibbs, the son of legendary NFL offensive line coach Alex Gibbs, doesn’t attribute any of the struggles to a lack of physicality that stems from working for an Air Raid coach.
“Gibbs is a great example,” said Maryland safeties coach Zac Spavital, a co-defensive coordinator at Texas Tech after coaching defensive backs under Gibbs at Houston. “He’s a great defensive coordinator, and he was really good statistically at Houston. And then we go to Tech, and it’s like they don’t think he can call a defense.
“It’s a combination of a lot of things. It’s your personnel. They’re such a high-scoring offense that if you’re not great personnel-wise, your focus is on creating turnovers and creating negative plays and things like that, and then if you find a mismatch, it gets really tough. It doesn’t change him from being a good coach.
“I would say the biggest issue we had at Tech — and we started being a lot more competitive that last year — was players and the personnel, and it was huge. We left a defense at Houston and there’s still a lot of those guys playing in the NFL now 10 years later.”
“You can go get the top-rated wideouts, but if you’re not getting the defensive personnel drafted and them having the success, (and) that’s a tool that was really utilized against us in recruiting by certain schools,” he said.
One position on offense Air Raid staffs usually don’t recruit, though, is tight ends. Because of that, it can be a trickier formula to master when it comes to addressing the needs of each side of the ball, especially depending on who is in charge. The traditional Air Raid isn’t reliant on tight ends. Those bigger bodies that many programs utilize as X-factors and to play “big boy” football seldom exist on Air Raid rosters.
“Where it’s really difficult is all spring long, you’re going against that offense so you’re not seeing the power-run games, the gap schemes, the tight end sets,” Gibson said.
Being able to run enough 12 personnel or condensed formations is problematic, according to one D-line coach who has been on Air Raid staffs. “You’re just not used to seeing it,” said the coach. “You gotta grab a defensive end, throw him over at tight end on scout team, and he’s like ‘OK, whatever,’ and he gives you a shitty-ass look.”
theathletic.com
UCF's co-DC David Gibbs has some good insights to this topic.
David Gibbs, a co-defensive coordinator at UCF, doesn’t believe in the “softness” myth either. Gibbs was once one of the hottest young defensive coaches in the sport. In 1997, at 29, he became the youngest DC in Division I when Glen Mason hired him at Minnesota. By his third season, Gibbs turned one of the Big Ten’s most consistently bad units into a defense ranked No. 8 in points allowed and pass efficiency defense.
In his one season at Auburn in 2005, the Tigers ranked No. 6 in scoring defense. At Houston, he improved the defense from No. 110 to No. 20 in his first year and to No. 15 his next. When Kliff Kingsbury hired him at Texas Tech in 2015, he inherited a unit that ranked second-to-last in scoring defense. Gibbs’ first two defenses in Lubbock ranked No. 125 and 128 in points allowed before improving to No. 98 and then to No. 86 in 2018, the year Kingsbury was fired.
“The truth is, and nobody will believe me, Kliff did a great job (running the team),” Gibbs said. “We practiced live tackling and we did a lot of things that people say Air Raid teams don’t do. We did. Every school is different. We were just so far behind recruiting that we couldn’t catch up.”
The numbers between where the Houston and Texas Tech teams ranked in average pass attempts per game are an interesting barometer to mirror the defensive struggles. In Gibbs’ four seasons, the Red Raiders ranked Nos. 2, 1, 8 and 4 in pass attempts per game, whereas Houston ranked Nos. 13 and 49 in his two seasons there. Gibbs, the son of legendary NFL offensive line coach Alex Gibbs, doesn’t attribute any of the struggles to a lack of physicality that stems from working for an Air Raid coach.
“Gibbs is a great example,” said Maryland safeties coach Zac Spavital, a co-defensive coordinator at Texas Tech after coaching defensive backs under Gibbs at Houston. “He’s a great defensive coordinator, and he was really good statistically at Houston. And then we go to Tech, and it’s like they don’t think he can call a defense.
“It’s a combination of a lot of things. It’s your personnel. They’re such a high-scoring offense that if you’re not great personnel-wise, your focus is on creating turnovers and creating negative plays and things like that, and then if you find a mismatch, it gets really tough. It doesn’t change him from being a good coach.
“I would say the biggest issue we had at Tech — and we started being a lot more competitive that last year — was players and the personnel, and it was huge. We left a defense at Houston and there’s still a lot of those guys playing in the NFL now 10 years later.”
Tight ends
Spavital noted the other big challenge has been recruiting coveted defenders to an Air Raid system.“You can go get the top-rated wideouts, but if you’re not getting the defensive personnel drafted and them having the success, (and) that’s a tool that was really utilized against us in recruiting by certain schools,” he said.
One position on offense Air Raid staffs usually don’t recruit, though, is tight ends. Because of that, it can be a trickier formula to master when it comes to addressing the needs of each side of the ball, especially depending on who is in charge. The traditional Air Raid isn’t reliant on tight ends. Those bigger bodies that many programs utilize as X-factors and to play “big boy” football seldom exist on Air Raid rosters.
“Where it’s really difficult is all spring long, you’re going against that offense so you’re not seeing the power-run games, the gap schemes, the tight end sets,” Gibson said.
Being able to run enough 12 personnel or condensed formations is problematic, according to one D-line coach who has been on Air Raid staffs. “You’re just not used to seeing it,” said the coach. “You gotta grab a defensive end, throw him over at tight end on scout team, and he’s like ‘OK, whatever,’ and he gives you a shitty-ass look.”
The myths, challenges and solutions to being a DC in an Air Raid system
Coaches rebuke the notion that an Air Raid offense makes a defense soft, but there are some real challenges for defensive staffs.
theathletic.com
